Out of the Pines

Year 49 of the New Times

Corbin stood over his brother's grave still clasping the gold heart locket while he gazed towards the hills. "I always seem to miss the snow until I haven't seen the color green for a month,” he thought. When it's hardly ever truly dark, the white of the snow was a constant mirror to the lamp of late. Every step, every stumble, lingers for a few days in the off-white mess of disheveled earth and snow. He dropped the locket across the grave stone and felt overwhelmed by the memories flooding back.

Year 44 of the New Times

He remembered how his brother Joseph loved the snow, the same way our father loved Joseph. He had a fire about him; I can't say that I've ever seen him shiver. Even though he was two years younger, he looked older, acted older. Aside from the blue eyes that were mom's, he was the spitting image of father. The same unruly beard, solid stature -- the same leather palms worked tough from the crops in which he tended. He was everything I wasn't. You could watch me and imagine exactly what my bones would look like under the cotton of my collar.

My mother was quite fond of me. She had every story I'd ever written on her desk. She would sometimes show up unannounced to my small cabin where I had a dusty typewriter and a piano that I played, entertaining none but the smoke rising from the chimney. Sometimes I wondered if I would hate Joseph if he hadn't had mom’s eyes.

But then I met Anna, and nothing would ever matter again.

--

We had traveled North with a dozen families after martial law was declared. One night, you could see smoke clouds of burning hot wind. Some said it was a nuclear blast in the atmosphere, but others said it was a massive solar flare. Whatever it was, it left beautiful colors in the sky that did not ease anyone's anxiety. Nothing mechanical worked after that. Now it was Year 44 of the New Times, and supplies were scarce.

When we received word that the upper coast had been destroyed, we set out on wagons to see what could be salvaged. We had not received any news for a long time, and no one knew for sure what had happened. Only the old talked about it, and the young were just wanting to live what we knew. We had an occasional stranger come through, and we would wait anxiously for any detail of where he’d come from, and then decide if he got to wake up in the morning and help work the fields, or be put down. The people they would encounter on supply runs were almost feral, and were shot to keep from being a threat to what we had left. All they knew for sure was people were dying.

There were three of us going. My father said he could spare me, which did not surprise anyone. The other two guys, Aaron and Will, I had grown up with, and they were all right. We decided to leave after the fall dance that was held in our family's barn. Everyone dressed up with gowns made from whatever they could find; curtains or old packing materials. People worked all year to outdo each other. Anna was from across the hills, and we had not seen her for some time. She had made a dress from an old parachute, and everyone could only stare at her. She had grown into a beautiful woman, and I could not see anything else. We talked and danced all night, and we went back to my small cabin and she was mine.

I would be gone for six to eight months, and then we would set up a house. We had a few days together, and I introduced her to my family as my wife. My mother said that she had been married with all her family around her, but no one had time for that anymore. She gave Anna her gold, heart-shaped locket as a gift, welcoming her to our family.

Three years passed before I could come home again. It will be a while before I am ready to talk about what we saw.

Year 47 of the New Times

Will and I walked onto my father’s property without seeing a soul. Before anxiety could get the best of us, we noticed the barn lit up, and realized the fall festival was in full swing without us. We could hear the chatter of cheerful people as we walked to the barn. Everyone fell silent when we entered. They stared at us, stunned, and began to talk all at once.

My father approached me, my brother by his side like always, both with looks of worry on their faces. I knew something was wrong. I turned quickly to see my mother rushing over, and then I saw Anna frozen against the staircase like she’d seen a ghost. I started for her, but my father pulled me outside with my brother.

My brother wouldn’t look me in the eye. My father looked old. He struggled to say what was troubling him. “They told us you were dead… everyone said you were dead. And what was Anna to do with a child on the way? Look, your brother took her as his wife, and they have raised the boy together.” My heart sank, and I could feel the color leaving my face. “That’s how it is now, so you must accept it. We are all living in the big house together, and you can have your cabin back. I have farm hands in it, but you will stay with us till we get them moved.”

Anna walked out holding our son, looking nervous and unsure. I asked her softly, “Is this what you want?” My brother blew up with rage, pushing against me, cursing me for speaking, hating me for living. We could hear footsteps of people coming to see what was happening, so my father hurried us up to the house. No one knew that Anna did not have Joseph’s child, and he wanted to keep it that way. I laughed because everyone knew the truth, however my father felt he could declare something, and that was the way it was. He ended the conversation and sent us off to bed.

Tomorrow we would all go hunting and work this out.

--

We woke to a sullen quality in the air. Anna stole a look at me. Joseph came in and gave her a kiss, looking over to see my reaction, but I gave none. I was too consumed by the disgust on Anna’s face as she pulled away. My brother had gone from stocky to heavy, and his handsome face looked dull. Where was his fire?

Ever since we were old enough to fire a gun, it's been a tradition for the three of us to go hunting after the fall festival. There's always been this unspoken competition between us, and it was about the only thing I had him beat at.

As we mounted the horses, we made bets on who would make the first kill. Dad was almost bearable, trying to act like this was a great time. We always traveled a few kilometers South to the same spot every year. The chorus of birds whistled in the distance against the unnatural waves of color in the sky. We tied up our horses on the same four oak trees for as long as I could remember.

We made our way down a trail barely visible in the snow. Twenty minutes had passed when father and I realized that Joseph had cut off the path and disappeared into the foliage. We heard his gun fire, and fifty yards ahead lay a buck. Joseph looked down at me with a mocking grin. I was quiet while we walked over to his kill, not paying any mind to the celebratory boasting that cut through the air.

I knelt beside the lifeless creature to examine the shot. My canteen strap had caught the trigger of my rifle, causing it to fire unexpectedly. The explosion blew me to the ground followed by an unparalleled stillness. I waited for my brother's insults, but instead I heard cries I had never heard before.

He hung like rags in the hands of my father. I couldn’t believe what I saw, but the picture remained constant. My father cried for what seemed like an eternity before we sat in silence. His eyes cut into me with a hatred that made me cringe.

"What have you done?" he whispered, looking down at the grotesque scene before us.

The blood was thin as it blended with water from the snow it had melted. It ran down the hill like lava, draining all the fire from him. He will sleep forevermore.

The reality of the situation set in, as I watched my father carry what was left of Jacob back to the horses. We got home and lowered him to the ground, not speaking a word to each other. My father’s burning eyes tell me he wishes it was me lying there.

Even as a dead man, I envy him. I want to sleep like he is sleeping right now.

Today is the day that my father lost the wrong son. The day I told a lie that will forever haunt my every breath.

Anna and mother ran from the house. Mother fell over Joseph, crying, and Anna stood as pale as a ghost with her hands over her mouth. My mother walked over and put her hands on my shoulders, promising me that she believed it was an accident.

Was it an accident?

O’ brother, what have I done?

Cries from pitch black lungs that you cannot hear fill your ears.

Hands that you cannot feel hold you near.

Gunpowder stops the blood in its tracks from running down my knuckles.

God, I never knew how much I loved you until you'd left.

I made a hole in your chest, yet I can see right through mine.

O’ father, look at your son.

What has he done? For where there was two now there is one.

O’ brother, what have I done?

Year 49 of the New Times

Several years have passed. A beard now grows where patches once rose from my skin. I can’t shave it fast enough, for each time I look at my reflection and see the likeness of my brother, it sends a chill down my bones.

I want to rest like he’s resting now, eight feet under, in a coffin where, by now, the worms have surely consumed him. Each morning, I watch the room flood with light from the rising sun.

My brain doesn’t fit like it used to.

Father has grown thin, and as we sit to eat, the masks are all in place except for my brother’s bastard son, bubbling with a fire that my brother once held in his heart. He looks up at me like a father. I can't blame him. I've walked out of his mother’s bedroom plenty mornings to find him looking at me with a look all too familiar. My brother lies underground, while I lay with his wife.

My heart doesn't beat like it used to.

That night I lay awake next to the hot body of my brother’s widow. I get up and walk on the tips of my toes to the kitchen to make myself a drink, I pass little Joseph’s bedroom and the pine cracks under my feet.

"Daddy?"